Torrent sites go offline as police raid alleged copyright infringers

Pirate Bay goes offline too, but attributes that outage to power problems.

Swedish police raided the hosting company PRQ today, taking four servers and possibly dozens of file-sharing sites offline. According to a report by TorrentFreak, sites taken offline include torrent sites torrenthound.com, linkomanija.net, and tankafetast.nu, several sports streaming sites, and at least two private BitTorrent sites.

PRQ was founded by two Swedes who also went on to found The Pirate Bay. PRQ was also the target of a 2006 raid that took the Pirate Bay website offline due to copyright infringement allegations. Coincidentally, the Pirate Bay also went offline today. But this was apparently unrelated to the PRQ raid, as Pirate Bay no longer relies on PRQ for hosting. The Pirate Bay said on Facebook that it is suffering through a power outage. "We have not been raided. We are not shutting down. We like turtles, waffles, and you," the Pirate Bay said.

PRQ confirmed today's raid. The outlet has a long list of controversial clients including WikiLeaks and the North American Man-Boy Love Association, according to a Forbes article. But the websites taken offline by the raid seem to be restricted to file sharing and streaming sites, plus PRQ's own site.

PRQ owner Mikael Viborg described the raid in an interview with Swedish news site Nyheter24, saying the police seized four servers, and that the raid was the first on the company since 2010.

122 Reader Comments

"The outlet has a long list of controversial clients including... the North American Man-Boy Love Association... But the websites taken offline by the raid seem to be restricted to file sharing and streaming sites."

I find myself reminded of the IFPI spokesman quote about him loving pedophilia for its ability to cut thru political red tape. Compare anything to it, and the politicians instantly understood the "severity" of the issue...

Btw, i suspect the biggest loss will be the private sites. This because i suspect they provided their own trackers.

Take a video, apply dubstep soundtrack to it while retaining the full length of the video (jumbled, of course), and provide a secondary un-dubstep-erizer map file to undo all the damage and reconstruct the file. Voila! A way to circumvent copyright, punishable by the DMCA as an anti-circumvention tool. This way, we can just use YouTube and bypass all that obvious torrent nonsense.

Take a video, apply dubstep soundtrack to it while retaining the full length of the video (jumbled, of course), and provide a secondary un-dubstep-erizer map file to undo all the damage and reconstruct the file. Voila! A way to circumvent copyright, punishable by the DMCA as an anti-circumvention tool. This way, we can just use YouTube and bypass all that torrent nonsense.

You would invent an un-dubstep-erizer and you are excited about using it for copyright circumvention? I don't think you are seeing the bigger picture here.

You would invent an un-dubstep-erizer and you are excited about using it for copyright circumvention? I don't think you are seeing the bigger picture here.

The bigger picture is that it could be used for passing State secrets without their knowledge, something even safer than using a two-way hash to decrypt something, since music will seem innocuous and not an obvious secret (like using an image with ELS artifacts to reconstruct a message).

What I see when torrent sites get taken offline, is that these sites are being held liable for what their users are sharing even if there is a substantial non-infringing use. Of course, the majority of the traffic probably isn't legal sharing, but I still think that guilt should be determined by a court first.

The Wild West days of the Internet was fun while it lasted. Now it's just becoming more and more of a corporation/government controlled realm.

Anyone still want to bet that the silly 'the Internet routes around censorship' claim will remain true?

It will depend on the context, really. I found out about this when I went to torrent something just now. Searched TPB, twitter confirmed it was down. Googled for torrent, found one of those repeater sites. Many of those were down, which was what really made me think something had happened. Still found a torrent quickly, but only see a list of non-responsive trackers. Unless some of those go back online, this could indeed invalidate a lot of torrents.

Meanwhile, I suspect I could go onto some IRC cave somewhere, and unearth the desired content from an XDCC, just like I did before torrents and p2p in general. In truth, I was just looking for a better resolution of my, er, legal content, and it's only a mild annoyance that I'm stuck with an inferior copy. It's not worth my effort to go treasure hunting for a better copy on IRC. Maybe I'll buy the DVD, but the content in question is brainless entertainment anyways (probably not). I find DVDs to be a rude, boorish medium. I hate enforced warning screens and I hate hyperactive, unresponsive animated menus. This means I'd wind up ripping it, which boils down to more hassle than it's worth.

So, I suppose they've succeeded in strangling me for tonight, but it is at most a mild inconvenience. If this were something I really, really cared about (instead of a very unscientific crime scene drama) I would put the effort in to go and find it. It's not the end so much as it is an odd flashback to 1999 or so. I suspect it will be but a temporary bump in the road, and new torrent sites will (re)surface. Sort of like when the power goes out, and you're forced to entertain yourself without technology....

I don't see how torrents and the pedophile site can be grouped together. Piracy is one thing, but to be in the same category as pedophile sites is just plain wrong.

I can tell you from personal experience that most of the torrent site users are poor, low income people. And if it were not for torrent sites they just wouldn't see the content. Those who see the content can tell there friends what was good or not. This in turn leads to sales.

Most people do not want to be bothered with torrents. Most torrent site host malicious advertising and will infect computers for those who don't know which download box to click. A lot of people have tried torrents, but the problems are not worth the price to most people. Doing drugs is a lot less trouble.

The war on torrents is as ridiculous as the war on drugs, but in a totally different way. All these new rules for less than 1% of the population. The war on drugs on the other hand is going ofter people who make legitimate business transactions, but their products are arbitrarily illegal. I am not a user of drugs, but I disagree with it being illegal. As I see it as a legitimate business good for the economy.

. Searched TPB, twitter confirmed it was down. Googled for torrent, found one of those repeater sites. Many of those were down, which was what really made me think something had happened. Still found a torrent quickly, but only see a list of non-responsive trackers. Unless some of those go back online, this could indeed invalidate a lot of torrents.

What is this? 2004?Back in 2005 there was this little thing that became widespread among torrent clients. We call it DHT (It's short for 'distributed hash table'). It works without trackers, and means sites going down means nothing. See when demonoid came back in 2010 after being gone for 9 months, and half the torrents still worked.

. Searched TPB, twitter confirmed it was down. Googled for torrent, found one of those repeater sites. Many of those were down, which was what really made me think something had happened. Still found a torrent quickly, but only see a list of non-responsive trackers. Unless some of those go back online, this could indeed invalidate a lot of torrents.

What is this? 2004?Back in 2005 there was this little thing that became widespread among torrent clients. We call it DHT (It's short for 'distributed hash table'). It works without trackers, and means sites going down means nothing. See when demonoid came back in 2010 after being gone for 9 months, and half the torrents still worked.

thanks for that. i've never bothered to understand the protocol; maybe i should.

yet, "half the torrents" is still a significant hit to the pool... and what do you want to bet the losses were mostly the obscure stuff, which you cannot find except via piracy? or am i wrong again

The war on torrents is as ridiculous as the war on drugs, but in a totally different way. All these new rules for less than 1% of the population. The war on drugs on the other hand is going ofter people who make legitimate business transactions, but their products are arbitrarily illegal. I am not a user of drugs, but I disagree with it being illegal. As I see it as a legitimate business good for the economy.

Wow, someone who agrees with me. I tried the "I am not a user of drugs, but I disagree with it being illegal" with some colleagues and I got laughed at. As I see it it's no worse than alcohol or tobacco, except those are much older. When I said that, they looked at me with a face like I saying some blasphemy.

And your point about torrents is also true. I would add foreigners that like to follow a TV show and go into IMDb bicker about it. If I was able to afford Netflix or Hulu and living in the US I wouldn't bother with torrents.

. Searched TPB, twitter confirmed it was down. Googled for torrent, found one of those repeater sites. Many of those were down, which was what really made me think something had happened. Still found a torrent quickly, but only see a list of non-responsive trackers. Unless some of those go back online, this could indeed invalidate a lot of torrents.

What is this? 2004?Back in 2005 there was this little thing that became widespread among torrent clients. We call it DHT (It's short for 'distributed hash table'). It works without trackers, and means sites going down means nothing. See when demonoid came back in 2010 after being gone for 9 months, and half the torrents still worked.

thanks for that. i've never bothered to understand the protocol; maybe i should.

yet, "half the torrents" is still a significant hit to the pool... and what do you want to bet the losses were mostly the obscure stuff, which you cannot find except via piracy? or am i wrong again

The trick is download a torrent with thousands of peers, so that the pool of people that can connect to you is much bigger, raising the probability of them having the file you want. Linux distros and porn are good examples. As long as there is one copy, it might take a looong time, but eventually is gets around.

. Searched TPB, twitter confirmed it was down. Googled for torrent, found one of those repeater sites. Many of those were down, which was what really made me think something had happened. Still found a torrent quickly, but only see a list of non-responsive trackers. Unless some of those go back online, this could indeed invalidate a lot of torrents.

What is this? 2004?Back in 2005 there was this little thing that became widespread among torrent clients. We call it DHT (It's short for 'distributed hash table'). It works without trackers, and means sites going down means nothing. See when demonoid came back in 2010 after being gone for 9 months, and half the torrents still worked.

thanks for that. i've never bothered to understand the protocol; maybe i should.

yet, "half the torrents" is still a significant hit to the pool... and what do you want to bet the losses were mostly the obscure stuff, which you cannot find except via piracy? or am i wrong again

The trick is download a torrent with thousands of peers, so that the pool of people that can connect to you is much bigger, raising the probability of them having the file you want. Linux distros and porn are good examples. As long as there is one copy, it might take a looong time, but eventually is gets around.

just like a forest fire flaring up after it's already been put out, thanks to smouldering embers being trapped beneath the leaves. we'd best hope they don't bring in the helicopters to soak everything.

. Searched TPB, twitter confirmed it was down. Googled for torrent, found one of those repeater sites. Many of those were down, which was what really made me think something had happened. Still found a torrent quickly, but only see a list of non-responsive trackers. Unless some of those go back online, this could indeed invalidate a lot of torrents.

What is this? 2004?Back in 2005 there was this little thing that became widespread among torrent clients. We call it DHT (It's short for 'distributed hash table'). It works without trackers, and means sites going down means nothing. See when demonoid came back in 2010 after being gone for 9 months, and half the torrents still worked.

thanks for that. i've never bothered to understand the protocol; maybe i should.

yet, "half the torrents" is still a significant hit to the pool... and what do you want to bet the losses were mostly the obscure stuff, which you cannot find except via piracy? or am i wrong again

The trick is download a torrent with thousands of peers, so that the pool of people that can connect to you is much bigger, raising the probability of them having the file you want. Linux distros and porn are good examples. As long as there is one copy, it might take a looong time, but eventually is gets around.

just like a forest fire flaring up after it's already been put out, thanks to smouldering embers being trapped beneath the leaves. we'd best hope they don't bring in the helicopters to soak everything.

Continuing the metaphor, let's just say that what they are trying to protect from the fire gets ruined with that much water.

"The outlet has a long list of controversial clients including... the North American Man-Boy Love Association... But the websites taken offline by the raid seem to be restricted to file sharing and streaming sites."

Thank god for big media watching out for our- wait....

That's right, I wonder how long is it going to take before Pedophilia becomes a crime with a less harsher sentence than file-sharing.

What a pathetic joke. Just as the other people said above me, this is as much of a joke as that inferior bullshit we call the war on drugs. And just like the war on drugs (it's the perfect metaphor), I can get illegal content EASIER than I can get legal content. I am willing to pay HBO and Showtime their fare share to be able to stream their content...but nooooo, the cable company has them by the balls with their monopolies and will frown upon them streaming their own content, thus bypassing their inferior tech. So, instead of HBO and Showtime and others getting my money, all thanks to Comcast ass fucking them with their contracts, my money instead goes to Netflix and Amazon Prime. And whenever something good comes out that I can't get through "proper" channels, which I am willing to pay for barring going back to inferior cable TV or Dish, I will find a way to get the content.

It's all a joke, and will do nothing to stop anything. Our shit for brains country has the wrong priorities. How many people die each year from illegal torrenting? How many movie companies, musicians, actors, producers, directors, etc, have gone bankrupt from illegal torrenting?

I should probably be worried that the first thing that pops into my head when I read "NAMBLA" is "North American Man Boy Love Association"; without actually knowing such organization existed until I read the articles after I read Rowlf's comment.

. Searched TPB, twitter confirmed it was down. Googled for torrent, found one of those repeater sites. Many of those were down, which was what really made me think something had happened. Still found a torrent quickly, but only see a list of non-responsive trackers. Unless some of those go back online, this could indeed invalidate a lot of torrents.

What is this? 2004?Back in 2005 there was this little thing that became widespread among torrent clients. We call it DHT (It's short for 'distributed hash table'). It works without trackers, and means sites going down means nothing. See when demonoid came back in 2010 after being gone for 9 months, and half the torrents still worked.

thanks for that. i've never bothered to understand the protocol; maybe i should.

yet, "half the torrents" is still a significant hit to the pool... and what do you want to bet the losses were mostly the obscure stuff, which you cannot find except via piracy? or am i wrong again

That's jsut because a lot of people assumed it was coming back sooner (thanks to idiotic self-important IRC ops who had to pretend they knew stuff so people didn't realise they were the bottom of the foot chain), so didn't re-distribute hte torrent files. Also DHT-based search engines like BTDigg didn't exist. Finally, A lot of people didn't have DHT enabled, because of a lot of FUD around DHT and DHT usage (mainly spread by so-called 'private' sites, where ignorance about bittorrent seems to be a pre-requisite.

This kind of ignorance isn't new, I was fighting it back in 05 with the bitcomet 0.60 debacle. And ignorance of DHT and what it is, and how it works has, if anything, grown since then.Here's a nice little guide I helped co-write a few years back.http://torrentfreak.com/common-bittorre ... hs-091024/

And if you've never seen magnet links and DHT in operation, here's a quick video I did a few years back (and I've been saying for more than a year I need to redo and expand things, but I've been so busy!) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L2akzneucKs

The Wild West days of the Internet was fun while it lasted. Now it's just becoming more and more of a corporation/government controlled realm.

Anyone still want to bet that the silly 'the Internet routes around censorship' claim will remain true?

This is yet another example showing that censorship of noncommercial communication of cultural material can't be accomplished without imposition of a purchased police state. The media corporations are driven by short-term profits and bonuses, so will continue to try to bribe and purchase laws to impose as much of a police-state environment as possible.

If draconian enough, the repression would have an increasingly chilling effect on all portions and uses of the internet. It would induce fear and indecision in much of the general public if successful. However, the technical core would remain, and ever more sophisticated tools to work work around censorship will be developed. As always, as these become available in an easy-to-use form, the general public will absorb them as well. The down side is that we would be left with an ineffective but repressive police state.

If the police-state tactics can to shown to be ineffective and counter-productive, there is a good chance the reaction to excesses could mitigate some of the damage done to commerce and the internet. The one unacceptable result would be to allow a police-state approach to succeed.

As pointed out elsewhere, there is little reason to use trackers with torrents. They are central points of failure, and can be used for monitoring. Magnet links for less-popular torrents work just fine once first connected to a very popular torrent to make initial peer connections. Peer blockers do block many large-scale shotgun monitor efforts, and are free and easy to use. Some find this is all that is needed, although they are very incomplete filters.

The war on torrents is as ridiculous as the war on drugs, but in a totally different way. All these new rules for less than 1% of the population. The war on drugs on the other hand is going ofter people who make legitimate business transactions, but their products are arbitrarily illegal. I am not a user of drugs, but I disagree with it being illegal. As I see it as a legitimate business good for the economy.

Out of curiosity - which part of torrenting is "a legitimate business good for the economy"?

The war on torrents is as ridiculous as the war on drugs, but in a totally different way. All these new rules for less than 1% of the population. The war on drugs on the other hand is going ofter people who make legitimate business transactions, but their products are arbitrarily illegal. I am not a user of drugs, but I disagree with it being illegal. As I see it as a legitimate business good for the economy.

Out of curiosity - which part of torrenting is "a legitimate business good for the economy"?

i think what he means is "good for humanity" but the television has confused him into swapping words.